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Sadhaka Speaks |
What is Meditation? 
It is a process of bringing body,
mind, soul and consciousness to most natural form. It is achieved by practice.
It cannot be learnt by reading, listening and understanding concepts. It
involves body, mind and soul. It should be learnt from a practitioner. In my
view, one who really knows meditation and has bio-energy (prana) to give
experience of meditation to others is only eligible for teaching meditation.
It is a different dimension!
It is a different dimension of consciousness. Where there is a thought, there is
a mind. Where there is no thought, there is no mind. Meditation is beyond mind.
It is thoughtlessness. It is witnessing of mind and body. It is a natural state.
You feel effortless, what ever you do in this state.
Dhyana – 7th of
Patanjali yoga
The
Patanjali Yogasutra gave eight-fold path. I divide it in pravruti (activeness - yam,
niyama, asana, pranayama, pratyahara, dharana) and nivruti (inactiveness-
dhyana, samadhi). Samadhi is 8th -union with God -highest dimension
of consciousness. Normal social life after samadhi is the aim. The new dimension
of yoga transforms your life. And you can contribute best to your life as well
as to society.
Beyond
Mind State: the discovery of meditation
We
already defined "beyond mind" state is absence of thoughts. We you sit
in meditation lots of thoughts come to mind. But they do not come
simultaneously. The chain of thoughts sequentially. One thought comes, followed
by thoughtless gap, again another thought, followed by thoughtless gap,
and goes on... This thoughtless gap is important. All saints have achieved
self-realization within this thoughtless gap. In begin this gap is narrow in
layman's mind. But as a sadhaka practice sakshibhava regularly, the useless
thoughts are deleted from subconscious mind. So less thoughts come to mind. And
this thoughtless gap increases. In other way we can say if you observe one
thought with sakshibhava, such thought is deleted from subconscious mind. The
space occupied by this thought becomes blank. This is called thoughtless
state or no-mind state or beyond mind state. The dhyana
-meditation happens naturally in this state. That is why repeatedly
say, "meditation means " doing nothing at all". This thoughtless
gap occurs naturally to every one. You will also experience that after a month
of regular meditation, this thoughtless gap becomes noticeable. Do not try to
increase the gap. Do not try to decrease or increase thoughts coming to mind.
What ever comes to mind, let it come. What ever goes, let it go. You should not
do anything. This is very easy process. If some guru tries to glorify or
project this thoughtless state as difficult, beware of such guru. He may not
know this process practically. By reading books, this technique is not
mastered. One should have patience and perseverance to practice sakshibhava.
This state is also beyond logic. We cannot convince you logically. Beware
of logical gurus also. They may convince lots intelligent persons. Even highly
qualified persons also waste their life after non-realized gurus.
Our
point is to stress that you should discover the truth. You cannot assume
or imagine or believe anything about truth. Someone asked sage Ramkrishna
Parmahansa, "Did you really see God?" He replied, "Yes". The
person asked again, " Can I also see God?". He replied, "You can
see God as you can see me or any other things". Meditation, samadhi, astral
vision, etc are natural processes. So you have to discover them by yogic
practice. "Non-occurring of thoughts" is meditation.
Sakshibhava-
witnessing is the essence of meditation
If you know
how to witness, you know neutral approach to your mental processes. This is an
essence of every thing. If you are neutral, your viewpoint, your approach, your
attitude becomes balanced, becomes unbiased. When you are given case studies in
study of management, you can think of best solutions. Because you are not
attached to it. In third person’s role you can perform best. If you try to
find faults of others, you will do it best! But you cannot observe your own
faults and improve them. If two persons have a dispute for some issue, if you
are outsider, a third person, you can have non-biased and neutral solution for
their problem. These skills do not come from outside. They are within you only.
When you are able to watch yourself, your thoughts by witnessing, you become
different person like a third person. In this situation your ego, your personal
attitude becomes subsidiary. You can also cultivate sakshibhava – witnessing by
understanding and implementing it practically. You will observe that whenever
you are witness of your thoughts, your mind, your ego becomes zero. A new
dimension in your life starts. Scriptures tells there is no difference
between you and god while you are witness. Your ego becomes naturally zero.
So union with God is achieved. Yoga is done. “Khud” merges into
“Khuda”. “Mahobbat itni badh jaye ki mein tujamen, tu mujamen sama jaye.
You can feel “Kingdom of God”, “existence of Khuda”, “union with
God”, “Vaikuntha”, “Go Loka”, “meditation – samadhi”, etc. This
seems to be highly spiritual. But it is very simple and easy to practice and
achieve. If you do not experience such, believe me, then either your witnessing
is “wrong or imposed one” or you are really having an experience but not
willing to appreciate. As for example, a cub-lion’s baby is mixed with crowd
of sheep. And it forgets identity; it believes that it is also a sheep. But
really if you become neutral – witnessing to yourself, your ego goes away. Now
you are not an individual person. You are now united with god the universal
consciousness. You are connected with the ultimate almighty power. You feel
yourself part and parcel of God. You become the hands of God. When true mystery
of witnessing unfolds you, whether you accept or not, these has to be happened.
Caution about witnessing
You will think
if witnessing is such an easily achievable state, then why every body is not
doing it. Why such great confusions in spirituality are there? Why are the
differences between the philosophies of several religions? Answer follows in
next paragraph.
You should be
cautious while practicing “witnessing”. Because I am teaching you to clear
your concepts. In begin you will try to cultivate sakshibhava. Your subconscious
mind will start becoming free from useless thoughts. Then “witnessing comes
naturally. “Witnessing” is natural and automatic. You do not have to
care for it for whole day. Of course, if natural witnessing is disturbed, then
you should try again to cultivate it. Your efforts should be effortless
efforts. Now I will answer about differences among several religions. Their
founder heads had similar experience. So if you listen to any real saint, they
never oppose any religion. There are 300 religion and 3000 sects. The same
experience was the cause of foundation of all. But successors could not continue
true practice as well as true understanding. They did not practice nor they
understood. So they made the easier things difficult.
They stuck to their theory, scriptures, rules-regulations, rituals, etc.
instead of real practice and real understanding. They gave more importance to
other things (rules-regulation) rather than God.
At this
moment, you are not blank. You have already flooded with lots of wrong concepts
of spirituality. So you have to be cautious. You should put your concepts to
practice. I also wasted much time before I understood the concept and got real
practice.
So what to do
actually? If you believe in God or any super power and if you believe that you
want to find out reality, then the answer is simple. “Exclude yourself from
experiments. Put your thoughts, your knowledge aside for a moment. Be inactive
totally for a moment. Do nothing at all is meditation. Meditation is
being-ness, it is happening, it is not doing anything. If your wish permits,
you will also not permit your sleep happen without your permission. But
God did not provide you control over sleep. But with more and more developments,
we will succeed in loosing our sleep even! Meditation is just like a sleep.
Every body can naturally go into it. There
is very less difference between sleep and meditation. All physical and mental
processes in sleep and in meditation are similar. Only difference is while in
meditation you are awaken, you can watch and witness your thoughts and thereby
you can delete useless thoughts. The key to control conscious mind and
subconscious mind comes to you. But during sleep also mind commits
“likes-dislikes” during dreams. Either you like dream or you do not like. So
such useless dreams also enters your subconscious mind. Yoga – meditation
are a system to improve functioning of body and mind. So it does not have any
concern with any religion. All person of all religion can practice it and can
get same results.
How bio-energy, purity of body-mind, activating charkas, and kundalini help to
operate on subconscious mind?
There are some logical gurus, who tell you to practice witnessing directly. But
witnessing should become natural. But without increased bio-energy level,
without purifying body-mind, without activating charkas and kundalini, the
“witnessing” is difficult to practice. Even it is impractical for most of
the persons. There is a difference between logical explanation and real
practice. Theoretical explanation should be taken for understanding concepts.
But when the meditation showers its grace on you, then only you really are able
to appreciate these theories. The persons having attitude to treat every
thing logically should avoid reading my notes. Because we explain some thing
after years of practical experience, those concepts cannot be realized without
real practice. The real intelligent persons do not argue without practicing
meditation. After practicing
meditation even, there is a possibility that you may evaluate your experience.
But that if based on real practice, will lead to real knowledge.
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